Peacekeeping forces: hanging tank

[Info-Prim Neo analysis] A rule of dramaturgy says that a hunter’s gun hanging in the corner of the stage will definitely go off towards the end of the performance and one of the major characters will be killed. In this sense, the peacekeeping forces dispatched to the Security Zone in Transnistria during many years ‘have been hanging’ like a tank on Moldova’s territory or like an enormous bomb with delayed, but inevitable effect. The tragedy that happened on the first day of 2012 confirms the soundness of this rule and the great danger that the current peacekeeping format poses to the people’s lives and the security of the country and Europe in general. This is also because a mechanism that does not ensure evolution, in any field, turns gradually, but inevitably into an antipode and a brake for the goals that it was to achieve initially, becoming ultimately a serious danger to them. The only solution in these circumstances is for the given mechanisms to transform themselves, to evolve together with the situation and adapt to the new conditions. The institution of peacekeeping forces in the summer of 1992, under the Snegur – Yeltsin agreement, was the only possible solution at that time and in that political situation, which could stop the bloodshed on the Nistru. As it turned out later, it was a high price paid by Chisinau for peace, but there was no other alternative price then, except for a suicide. The quadripartite mechanism created at the initial stage of the Transnistrian conflict, which included Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Romania, turned out to be not very viable and efficient or was pushed towards such a state. The newly-born Republic of Moldova was anonymous on the international arena. Something was known about it only through the Russian mass media that launched an informational war ‘on all the fronts and from all the cannons’. The pictures of the tanks, ‘Moldovan aggressors’ firing at ‘those who wanted freedom in Transnistria’, which were disseminated by the Russian TV channels, were seen all over the world and only later those who wanted found out that the tanks actually belonged to Russia’s 14th Army and they shot at the constitutional forces of an independent state that was a member of the UN. The lack of alternatives to the solution identified then to stop the bloodshed is indirectly confirmed by the fact that the current 5+2 format of the talks that involve international players, including world political and economic powers, does not manage either to make headway, also because of the current peacekeeping mechanism. It turned out soon that the trilateral (Moldova, Russia and the separatist administration of Transnistria) peacekeeping mechanism, where the decisions are taken by consensus and often in one direction, became an active participant in the conflict that voluntarily or not took the side of the secessionist regime. Besides maintaining peace on the banks of the Nistru River, the peacekeeping forces first of all ensured the maintaining of the status quo and even the strengthening of the Transnistrian regime. De facto, the paramilitary bodies - the so-called customs posts, border guard posts, the migration service and others – work unhindered in the Security Zone under the protection of the peacekeeping forces, even if the Moldovan-Russian Agreement of July 1992 clearly bans this. The separatist regime brought new paramilitary bodies to the Security Zone when it wanted, while the Joint Control Commission, which manages the unified military peacekeeping contingent, over 20 years never succeeded in forcing Tiraspol to pull them out. Whenever they wanted, the paramilitary bodies of the secessionist regime arrested people in the Security Zone settlements that are controlled by the Moldovan constitutional authorities, hindering the electoral and education processes. Indirectly, but also directly, the trilateral peacekeeping forces have hampered the movement of people, goods, money and services between the banks of the Nistru during two decades and this compromises any chance of settling the conflict and reunifying Moldova within its internationally recognized borders. Thus, the current peacekeeping mechanism became one of the main elements of the vicious circle that prevents making progress in the negotiation process because it allows the separatist regime to discuss from positions of force. The transformation of the peacekeeping mechanism is to become one of the main objectives of the 5+2 format talks, not after, but simultaneously with the working our of the political status of the Transnistrian regime. Proposals concerning the future format of the peacekeeping mechanism have been put forward long ago, including at official level, by the Moldovan authorities and by a part of the negotiation partners. The optimal solution at this stage is to transform the current military mission into a civil one under an international mandate, possible of the OSCE. At a certain moment, the Russian authorities supported this viewpoint on condition that the topic should be discussed after the settlement of the conflict. The tragedy that occurred at a peacekeeping post on January 1 shows that the discussion of this topic must be hastened. It would be ideal if the Russian Ambassador in Chisinau Valery Kuzmin adopted such an approach, but he preferred to say that we should remain in that vicious circle. On the one hand, the non-settling of the Transnistrian dispute does not enable to replace the current peacekeeping forces. On the other hand, the non-replacement of the peacekeepers does not allow resolving the dispute. ... the Russian ambassador invoked among others that the victim was under the influence of alcohol. But can anyone who did the military service in the Soviet or the Russian army and in other parts that the peacekeepers of the given post did not drink alcohol on New Year’s Eve? Can we leave the fate of the Security Zone, the lives of the people living there and the Transnistrian conflict in general in the hands of the hazard, guided by the mentality of armed military men, who are concentrated many in one place and for a long period of time? [Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo]